His books, essays, and journalistic career spanned more than four decades. Recognized as a public intellectual, he was a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. He was a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and a variety of other media outlets.

Books
Sole author

1984 Cyprus. Quartet. Revised editions as Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger, 1989 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and 1997 (Verso).
1987 Imperial Spoils: The Curious Case of the Elgin Marbles. Chatto and Windus (UK)/Hill and Wang (US, 1988) / 1997 UK Verso edition as The Elgin Marbles: Should They Be Returned to Greece? (with essays by Robert Browning and Graham Binns). Reissued and updated 2008 as The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification, Verso.
1988 Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports. Hill and Wang (US)/Chatto and Windus (UK).
1990 The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain’s Favourite Fetish. Chatto & Windus, 1990.
1990 Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Reissued 2004, with a new introduction, as Blood, Class and Empire: The Enduring Anglo-American Relationship, Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-592-7)
1993 For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports. Verso, ISBN 0-86091-435-6
1995 The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Verso.
1999 No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton. Verso. Reissued as No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family in 2000.
2000 Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere. Verso
2001 The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Verso.
2001 Letters to a Young Contrarian. Basic Books.
2002 Why Orwell Matters, Basic Books (US)/UK edition as Orwell’s Victory, Allen Lane/The Penguin Press.
2003 A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq. Plume Books. Originally released as Regime Change (Penguin).
2004 Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays. Thunder’s Mouth, Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-580-3
2005 Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. Eminent Lives/Atlas Books/HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-06-059896-4
2006 Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Man”: A Biography. Books That Shook the World/Atlantic Books, ISBN 1-84354-513-6
2007 God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA/Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-57980-7 / Published in the UK as God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion. Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84354-586-6
2010 Hitch-22 Some Confessions and Contradictions: A Memoir . Hachette Book Group. ISBN 978-0-446-54033-9 (published by Allen and Unwin in Australia in May 2010 with the shorter title: Hitch-22. A Memoir.) ISBN 978-1-74175-962-4
2011 Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens. Twelve. UK edition as Arguably: Selected Prose. Atlantic.
2012 Mortality. Atlantic.

41 Responses

The greatest gift and loss for 21st-Century thought. Don't bother even listening to Jordan Peterson before hearing what this man has to say. He passes on the message of George Orwell that totalitarianism is essentially theocratic. This is probably the most important point they can teach us. Theocracy and dictatorship are one and the same.

I would love to have heard Christopher debate his ridged minded little brother about the subject of cannabis legalization. Peter's argument from what I could tell from his BBC disagreement with Mathew Perry is drugs are illegal therefore bad which is the shittest argument I can think of almost. I doubt a conversation like that has ever been recorded between the siblings but if so and anyone has a link please share it with me.

Love these Hitch clips, has anyone else noticed he has this strategy where he will be done with a sentence and the host or in case of other debater starts to speak and he immediately starts back up with another sentence to interrupt them? If you haven't noticed you will now!

Hitchens sometimes answers people too articulately. Some of the people calling in are clearly less well read than he,thus, when responding to their questions or criticisms, he should in a way, dumb down his answers so that they can understand what it is he is saying.

I have preferred the King James version because of the fact that its translation was the work of a committee. Read about that effort in a book called God's Secretaries. It is interest to see how our Constitution came about in a very similar way.

Love question at around 50min mark, dealing with non for profit religion and how they don’t pay taxes. Wonder what the once socialist turned raging war mongering capitalist Hitchens would be thinking about google, Walmart, or amazon and their wealth fare queen business model or for that matter, that the education of women is now tied to a for profit education system.

He lost is way and the proof is in these years that he’s not around to see, pity.

I love Hitch, but I don't romanticize his drug abuse, i.e. his licit use of alcohol and cigarettes. And I did see a disappointing roundtable discussion with the four horseman, in which Hitch sat, pickling his liver, with his cherubic hands and body, and smoking, obnoxiously, making his best effort to spare the others from the smoke. But I guess, no one can be perfect, and had he cared for his health, he might be close to perfect. RIP Hitch. You gifted all who heard you think and speak.

Hitchens was completely wrong about the invasion / regime change in Iraq. Point one: The US had backed Saddam for many years, only deciding to attack him when he invaded one of their gulf oil supplier pals. Point two: There was no WMD in Iraq – and bush knew it. 9/11 was a classic false flag excuse to attack the wrong country. Osama bin Laden, using Saudi terrorists, was responsible for 9/11. Hitchens never mentioned these facts. On Religion, he was 100% correct… It's mind control bullshit.

Christopher Hitchens. A man of substance, intellect and learning with an unsurpassable wit the likes of which will never be seen again in our age. Honest and open, a staunch fighter against the tyrannical megalomania of every religion. An advocate for free speech with warnings completely overlooked by the world which is all the poorer for it. A modern day prophet with a penchant for truth, a poet a genius and a Gentleman for all time. Rest in piece Sir, we salute you.

HITCHENS is right to bring Scowcroft and Eaagleburger into the discussion about the first failed Iraq invasion in 1991, and especially Kissinger’s involvement in the whole thing, and not restrict it to only the invasion by Bush, Jr.

I am an Ex Mormon and read his book God is Not Great 6 times. His book has helped me in my transition out of Mormonisn after I resigned from the LDS Church. Thank You Christopher Hitchens. Saint George, Utah, USA.